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Archive 2014 · Forum Activity

  
 
Tom Hicks
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p.1 #1 · p.1 #1 · Forum Activity


Here is a list by year of macro forum activity. It shows number of pages created by year.

First full year. 2003 - 29
04 - 66
05 - 85
06 - 56
07 - 71
08 - 109
09 - 84
10 - 81
11 - 61
12 - 41
13 - 20
Current 2014 - 23

It's your forum . Can you save it?? A forum can't be carried by 5 or so members.

Mod.



Jul 28, 2014 at 09:42 AM
trenchmonkey
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p.1 #2 · p.1 #2 · Forum Activity


Hiya, Tom. Sorry to read things are slow in macroland.
Here's a 'monkey bump




Jul 28, 2014 at 09:47 AM
Tom Hicks
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p.1 #3 · p.1 #3 · Forum Activity


Good to here from you Will, I may head to Bosque this year with another FMer , haven't been since 09 . If I do make it I'll give you a heads up, maybe we can catch a bite for dinner.

Tom



Jul 28, 2014 at 10:13 AM
e6filmuser
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p.1 #4 · p.1 #4 · Forum Activity


Tom Hicks wrote:
Here is a list by year of macro forum activity. It shows number of pages created by year.

First full year. 2003 - 29
04 - 66
05 - 85
06 - 56
07 - 71
08 - 109
09 - 84
10 - 81
11 - 61
...Show more

Tom,

I'm sure there are lots of lurkers out there, many of whom lack the confidence to start their first topic. Perhaps something like a beginners thread is needed?

One of the barriers, and I find this, is the lack of a preview option before commiting material to the public domain. Is this entirely out of the question?

Harold



Jul 30, 2014 at 01:25 AM
12monkeys
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p.1 #5 · p.1 #5 · Forum Activity


I think a bigger barrier may be the need to pay to upload. In the past, the upload and buy/sell functions were separate. The buy/sell is not required by most noobs, especially outside of the USA/Canada. And most beginners don't have flickr accounts to link to.

As time goes by, more and more forums appear. The ones that charge are going to lose people.



Jul 30, 2014 at 02:18 AM
e6filmuser
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p.1 #6 · p.1 #6 · Forum Activity


12monkeys wrote:
I think a bigger barrier may be the need to pay to upload. In the past, the upload and buy/sell functions were separate. The buy/sell is not required by most noobs, especially outside of the USA/Canada. And most beginners don't have flickr accounts to link to.

As time goes by, more and more forums appear. The ones that charge are going to lose people.


I had forgotten about that. Personally, I agree. There is also the limited life of the image links here, whereas those to images in free forums seem permanent.

I have not investigated uploading for sale but commercial buyers like to do their own processing, beyond the very basics, such that images posted in the forum may not be the version which would show them what is on offer. I also suspect that macro is the genre, together with landscape, where the market is smallest and probably not easily entered.

Harold



Jul 30, 2014 at 02:55 AM
trenchmonkey
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p.1 #7 · p.1 #7 · Forum Activity


One of the barriers, and I find this, is the lack of a preview option before commiting material to the public domain.

Post a pic to this thread...you don't like the way it looks, simply delete it.



Jul 30, 2014 at 07:09 AM
e6filmuser
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p.1 #8 · p.1 #8 · Forum Activity


trenchmonkey wrote:
Post a pic to this thread...you don't like the way it looks, simply delete it.


I have posted pictures under numerous topic headings and have deleted or re-sequenced a few before anyone could see them. Let me put it another way. It would be far easier to get a set of images in a prefered order if the whole post, images included, could be viewed in private before commiting to the public domain and the web crawlers. If you get it wrong the procedure for correcting the sequence is quite cumbersome and time-consuming and errors, e.g. in a topic title, can already be in search engines, possibly for ever.

Harold




Jul 30, 2014 at 07:23 AM
12monkeys
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p.1 #9 · p.1 #9 · Forum Activity


The other reason why there are fewer posts now - ignoring the elephant in the corner of the room for a little longer - is because most of FM's American members post their macro/close-up pics on the Nature & Wildlife forum.

Edited on Jul 31, 2014 at 12:39 AM · View previous versions



Jul 30, 2014 at 05:30 PM
coder
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p.1 #10 · p.1 #10 · Forum Activity


A preview feature would be nice, but don't think it keeps people from posting... I would like to see it implemented, however, if it's easy.

Tom, I wish you would shoot and post images again, I miss your top notch compositions. You were a big reason why the forum was more active a few years back.

Other members just seemed to have moved on elsewhere. I shoot much less these days myself and took about a year off from here...other things in life take priority.

Maybe new people who might be interested in macro are too busy taking "selfies" (good grief that I hate word).

I have seen some posts over in N&W that would be appropriate in the macro forum also as 12 mentions, maybe they are just comfortable posting over there. Heck, I'm fairly uncomfortable posting outside of this forum .







Jul 30, 2014 at 06:55 PM
danski0224
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p.1 #11 · p.1 #11 · Forum Activity


12monkeys wrote:
I think a bigger barrier may be the need to pay to upload. In the past, the upload and buy/sell functions were separate. The buy/sell is not required by most noobs, especially outside of the USA/Canada. And most beginners don't have flickr accounts to link to.

As time goes by, more and more forums appear. The ones that charge are going to lose people.


+1 on the paying part.

While there is a lot of content here and plenty of resources, paying to attach an image is off-putting.

Images hotlinked through hosting services always seem to go away, then you have meaningless threads.

Being able to attach a moderately sized image should be "free" with registration. I could accept having to pay if I wanted to attach large files or sell stuff.

The other item would be excessive criticism because the macro photo that was posted may not fit the true definition of macro.




Jul 30, 2014 at 07:35 PM
Dalantech
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p.1 #12 · p.1 #12 · Forum Activity


coder wrote:
Tom, I wish you would shoot and post images again, I miss your top notch compositions. You were a big reason why the forum was more active a few years back.


This...



Jul 31, 2014 at 01:00 AM
e6filmuser
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p.1 #13 · p.1 #13 · Forum Activity


coder wrote:
Maybe new people who might be interested in macro are too busy taking "selfies" (good grief that I hate word).


You mean, those small-minded people might be at home here?

Harold




Jul 31, 2014 at 01:00 AM
e6filmuser
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p.1 #14 · p.1 #14 · Forum Activity


12monkeys wrote:
The other reason why there are fewer posts now - ignoring the elephant in the corner of the room for a little longer - is because most of FM's American members post their macro/close-up pics on the Nature & Wildlife forum.


I don't know about "most" but, having ventured there only recently, I was surprised to find macro images there. An issue for moderators?

I wonder if changing the board title to "Close-up and Macro" would help.

Another thought: the range of lenses used for images posted here is mostly fairly unadventurous. Hardware enthusiasts are likely to go elsewhere.

Harold




Jul 31, 2014 at 01:07 AM
Dalantech
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p.1 #15 · p.1 #15 · Forum Activity


12monkeys wrote:
The other reason why there are fewer posts now - ignoring the elephant in the corner of the room for a little longer.


Look at the page counts for 2013 and 2014. LordV's absence isn't making any difference (there has already been more pages this year than last).



Jul 31, 2014 at 01:32 AM
trenchmonkey
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p.1 #16 · p.1 #16 · Forum Activity


12 wrote: because most of FM's American members post their macro/close-up pics on the Nature & Wildlife where they're guaranteed a lot more back slaps


This is EXACTLY the reason I don't post much there anymore



Jul 31, 2014 at 07:06 AM
Dalantech
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p.1 #17 · p.1 #17 · Forum Activity


trenchmonkey wrote:
This is EXACTLY the reason I don't post much there anymore


I've been watching the macro discipline degrade into a "circle jerk of mediocrity". Too many people willing to say "nice capture" when they should be saying "what the hell were you thinking when you took that?!". Unfortunately there are too many people who are perceived as being at the top of the discipline who are giving out those pats on the back when they should be kicking people in the backside -but they won't cause they're afraid of losing their fan base. To add insult to injury some of those same popular photographers have stopped pushing themselves. Instead of seeing a direct correlation between comments given to comments received they are actually believing what people are telling them about their work, so they've stopped pushing themselves. People who I thought were in the top ten about five years ago are just average now because too many people have caught up to them, and there is nothing iconic or unique about what they are doing.

Sadly I have no idea how to turn this bus in a different direction, other than to keep shooting single frames at high Fstop to prove to people that absolute image sharpness isn't a valid metric for the quality of a photo. You never hear anyone walking through a museum complaining that the art isn't sharp enough...

I never fully understood the saying "can't see the forest because the trees are in the way" until I started running into pixel peepers.




Jul 31, 2014 at 07:46 AM
e6filmuser
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p.1 #18 · p.1 #18 · Forum Activity


Dalantech wrote:
absolute image sharpness isn't a valid metric for the quality of a photo.


All sharpness is an illusion, as is the horizon. As you increase magnifcation you see more detail but it is less and less well-defined until there is no visible form at all, only energy.

Harold



Jul 31, 2014 at 10:19 AM
12monkeys
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p.1 #19 · p.1 #19 · Forum Activity


I don't even browse the board very often because there's no one here who really inspires me but that means I'm not improving and I'm bored of my own photos, so I don't really feel in a position to inspire anyone else either.

I bought a French macro magazine a few days ago and honestly, the standard is way above anything that I or anyone else here is doing. The vast majority of the pictures were taken at f2.8 to f4 and all concentrated on light, composition and backgrounds as much as the bug/flower.

That doesn't mean that it's the only way. I really like some of Nikola Rahme's early morning focus stacks but don't have the time to try to emulate him.

And to be fair, Tom, quite a few suggestions were made in the past - like changing the name to Macro & Close-Up - and you didn't follow any of them so you can't complain too much if the forum's rather quiet.



Jul 31, 2014 at 11:12 AM
e6filmuser
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p.1 #20 · p.1 #20 · Forum Activity


12monkeys wrote:
I bought a French macro magazine a few days ago and honestly, the standard is way above anything that I or anyone else here is doing. The vast majority of the pictures were taken at f2.8 to f4 and all concentrated on light, composition and backgrounds as much as the bug/flower.
#

Is that moderate close-ups or true macro?

I will keep it in mind when I go to France in September!

Harold




Jul 31, 2014 at 12:31 PM
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